Jamie Gambell

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Sunday, 8 February 2015

I haven't been able to write in months, and life is beginning to make other plans for me.

To be an indie comic creator one needs to have many skills to succeed - not just a creator, but a salesperson, a social networker, a tech savy person, a pre-press specialist...

There are only so many hours in the day, and I'm only one person - something has to give.

I've been incredibly fortunate to collaborate with fantastic people, but I just feel I'm not bringing enough to the table.

Time is a factor - it seems to be taking me longer and longer to get issues finished. I feel like even if I do come up with an interesting idea, the lag soon makes it seem old, stale. The various artists I've been working with are either finding themselves too busy to fit in the MPS work, or life is getting in their way too.

Finances also play a part.

It costs a lot to make comics, and they make very little - it seems even the successful indie ones.

Also, the climate in the comic industry often leaves me feeling sad and angry.

So where does that leave the current projects I have in states of unfinished?

Hero Code - all art work is finished on issues 3 and 4. Three will hopefully be colored this month. Five will finish the arc.

Hero Code Theatre of War - art on issues 1 and 2 are complete. Issue 3 is about half way done. All issues need to be colored.

Department O - issue 3's script is ready to go.

I will try to get work done as and when I can afford it and the team's can fit it in.

I will finish them off, it's just a matter of time.

It's time for me to focus my energies elsewhere - time has always been an issue for me - I have work and family commitments that take priority.

Making comics was a great hobby, but my day job is really what I want to do, and it's time to make more of an effort in that area - ultimately, it's what I'm good at.

A fantastic piece of work which immerses the reader in an unsettling world, skirting nightmarish ideas along the line of wondrous childlike imaginations, the short of it is that Motherless Oven is an excellent book.

Great little touches, like the graveyard of Mother's Ruin - where old manufactured mothers are sent when they no longer have any purpose (a fountain of refreshment gin at the centre of a steampunk garden just adds to the sadness of the scene) - are throughout the book.

Ultimately the book has a great heart at the centre, and you really start to care about the characters, become invested in them as they journey to the edges of their world - trying to outrun their fate (literally for Scarper Lee, our protagonist, destined to meet his end as his deathday approaches).

I will be running a contest in December, a chance for someone to win all of the 12 books reviewed in the Year of the Indie series of reviews. Stay tuned for details!

Wednesday, 31 December 2014

Hello all, here we are at the end of another year, looking forward into the abyss sweet future of 2015!

How was 2014?

Well, I didn't make nearly as many comics as I would like (but I never do, maybe it's time to start tempering expectation?).

I didn't make it to as many conventions as I would like.

My day job career continued it's steady climb up.

My family is amazing, and infuriating, and I love them (both sides of the world).

What should I be looking forward to doing, or trying to do in 2015?

1. I'm going to slow down comic production as the day job shifts, but will be hitting some markers that I've been building to for a while now. Hero Code's first arc should be finishing up in 2015, and Theatre of War (the second arc) is nearly complete too.

2. Conventions, I will be attending a few next year, but holding off on tabling until I have more completed books to show. I may fly or drive up to ECCC, simply because a) it's a great show, and b) there are so many creators I like there, and collaborators I haven't met in person. But I won't be tabling there next year.

3. Day job, hopefully, will get interesting. The long running show I am on may be coming to a close, the tax incentives will be kicking in, so I'm hoping next year will be an exciting one.

4. My family are amazing.

Anything new?

I'm going to be working on an autobio comic in 2015, aiming to do 2 pages a month for a finished 24 page book at the end. I may try to do each page within an hour - a 24 hour comic spread over the year.

I will be running a Kickstarter for Hero Code vol 1. It will contain issues 1-6, as well as sketches, pin ups and a few odds and ends. It will be a bigger Kickstarter than I've ever run, so I'm nervous.

I will be writing a prose Black Wraith story. I fell sick at the start of 2014, and my writing muscle never fully recovered, so I need an exercise to get it back into shape.

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you to everyone who has read, supported, shared, commented, generally been great about my stuff over the year!

Saturday, 27 December 2014

I'm running an end of year sale, starting today until midnight on December 31st, where you can get 50% off everything at the store - http://monkeypipestudios.storenvy.comhttp://monkeypipestudios.storenvy.com

Just apply the code "MPS2014" at checkout for the discount.

Feel free to spread the news to anyone you know who might dig indie comics.

Friday, 26 December 2014

Not just because of me and, you know, my indie comic stuff (on that note you should totally check out the revamped monkeypipestudios website), but because indie comics is what got me really excited about comics, and continues to excite me about comics.

So here's what I am proposing I will do.

Once a month I will pick up an indie book (graphic novel, long comics, what ever you want to call them), read them, and do a short write up about them (so feel free to recommend me books you've liked or even books you've created - books though, not single issues).

In amongst this I will try to find at least one ComiXologySubmit title a week to read.

I will also try to pick up an indie title (single issue or short form or mini) while I am picking up my indie book at a local comic book store.

I'll try to (I make no promises here, because I am notoriously short of time) write up once a week about a Submit book, once a month about a long form and a short form indie book.

At the end of the year I'll have a contest (or draw) where someone will be able to win all 12 of the indie titles I've written up about or read over the year (which will make my wife happy, and save me space at home!)

How does that sound?

First book I picked up today (and will do my write up in January, probably toward the end) is Rob Davis' The Motherless Oven.

Sunday, 21 December 2014

I've been listing to Chris Anderson's Free recently. It's something I return to time and time again, and something which presents such simple ideas, and yet I always find myself fighting those ideas for no good reason.

As I search for a reason for creating comics (see earlier posts!) I know that deep down a big part of it is so far removed from financial or career gain, and yet I still force the idea of monitising my ideas.

I don't think there is anything wrong with this, and totally understand that some people need to do this, but it isn't for me.

With such a sharp move in comics towards the bits over atoms economy (people will argue this point, but I think that the comic book, physical, market is doomed to shrink in the US because it is so dependent on two main suppliers - big companies which are the classic embodiment of corporations in America working on the idea that a few billionaires are always better than a lot of millionaires) I find myself wondering why I am not doing more to promote the ideas and not the business of Monkey Pipe Studios.

I feel like, as a self described Independent Comic Book Collective, the idea has failed. I originally envisioned a group of like minded comic book creators pooling together to help spread ideas and create a collected fan base. But the core idea of a small imprint and outlet for my own projects still exists.

Time was also a factor for me. It always became tiresome to do weekly updates, or daily updates or single pages. I wasn't really trying to do a webcomic model, and I think it really doesn't behove the books to force them into something they are not.

I'm working on remodeling the Monkey Pipe website, and would ideally like to have a simple website which contained single issues within a reader like Issuu or something like that, so that people can read them in their entirety on the site. If they wish to buy digital copies, they can from Comixology or Drivethru - no harm in having the books there, as I'm pretty sure the readers from those services are casual and not regular visitors to the site.

I think it will be a good idea to do a release for each issue, and encourage discussion and talk about the issue with people. A big part of any independent comic booking is the building of something akin to a community around one's work - how ever big or small.

This would help lead into a Kickstarter campaign down the line for collected editions of each story arc or series - something which might be more successful if there is something like a community built around the series.

The overprint of these Kickstarter's would be used for comic book conventions, which I'd love to branch out with, but have been putting off of going too far until I have more comics to share.

That's where I'm at right now - we shall see how it goes over the next year or so.